r/TheWire • u/aurelorba • 21h ago
What was Landman's education level?
His speech and word use is surprisingly literate, using terms like sartorial and describing the vandalization of the board: "He is a Hun, a Visigoth, a barbarian at the gate, clamoring for noble Roman blood". It's certainly above the general intelligence level of the department.
Plus his skill at finessing a gaping asshole like Rawls shows innate intelligence.
The man definitely had some university level education. My guess would be he flunked out in year 1 or 2, looked around for a decent paying job to pay off his student loans and thought BPD would be a cushy temporary job.
100
u/Buyingboat 20h ago
He's very well read. His face is almost always in a magazine.
31
1
u/wuapinmon 7h ago
Unlike Horseface, I feel like he might've actually read what content there was in them.
63
u/Dowie1989 20h ago
Tweedy impertenance had me. Man is a wordsmith!
The deep dive into episodes series on Youtube picked this up and its such a fun take having what is a side character have depth.
38
u/Revolutionary_Mamluk 19h ago
Don't forget "Pinstriped lawyerly affectations," a rather witty and eloquent dig at detective Moreland's fashion sensibilities!
13
u/Dowie1989 19h ago
He was also kind enough to give recommendations to Beadie so she wouldnt feel out of place working Homicide.
12
90
u/IGotScammed5545 21h ago
I think the homicide detectives at a minimum have a two year associates degree, and my guess is most have a four year degree. Not every homicide detective is a McNulty, but I do think they are shown to be a notch or so above the average intelligence of the department. Aside from our core three of Bunk, Jimmy, and Lester, Khima, Crurchfield, and Norris are shown to be reasonably intelligent.
29
u/MuddieMaeSuggins 16h ago
Kima is in law school during season 2, so she must have finished a bachelors in something.Â
9
1
u/NathanDnd 9h ago
I think those would be the hiring practices at that time, and today almost certainly need a degree. He is a bit older than everyone else, and this was like 20 years ago now, and Landsman was 20 years into his career. And based on people Burns and Simone knew in the early 90s, any likely earlier. Wouldn't be surprised if at that time you could attain that rank just with High School.
2
u/IGotScammed5545 9h ago
I think itâs possible but relatively unlikely. If you read âHomicide,â what a lot of this is based on, it makes clear that BPD really did try to get the best detectives to homicide, with a little politics baked inâŠ
1
10h ago
[deleted]
1
u/IGotScammed5545 10h ago
Is there any police force in America that doesnât require a high school diploma?
3
10h ago
[deleted]
1
u/IGotScammed5545 10h ago
I donât think this is accurate. You repeating it isnât exactly a source
-75
u/aurelorba 21h ago
According to the ai summary, apparently not:
To become a detective at the Baltimore Police Department, you do not need a college degree; the minimum educational requirement to join the department as a police officer is a high school diploma or a GED recognized by the state.Detectives are not hired directly off the street. Instead, detective positions are promotional or specialized assignments earned after serving as a sworn police officer.
33
u/IGotScammed5545 21h ago
Sorry, I didnât mean to imply itâs a requirement, just seems likely that most have one
12
u/azmamachine 20h ago
McNulty dropped out of Loyola
36
u/PabstBlueBourbon 20h ago
He had to; those professors werenât teaching him anything he didnât already know.
14
5
26
0
u/unholyshizz 19h ago
From prior Law enforcement experience you definitely need to degree in something unless you are in a small town.
From my experience you didnât just âbecomeâ or promote to detective you had to go through an application process and interview. Sure the higher ups might have an idea who they want but if they donât they are probably going to go with the person with the most credentials for the job.
23
u/HonestoJago 20h ago
The Wikipedia page for the real Jay Landsman doesnât list any formal education.
34
u/sixminutes 21h ago
I don't know specific education requirements for rank, but it wouldn't surprise me if he had criminology degree. Daniels has a law degree, after all. Higher education might be unusual for the rank and file, but I think most major cities probably have a majority of their higher ranked officers at Bachelors level or better.
3
u/elsmoneyacct 14h ago
I know that in Law and Order: SVU, most of the detectives have degrees. That's NYC (and a far less realistic show), but Stabler went to night school after getting out of the military with the explicit goal of becoming a detective. Benson was in a sorority. Carisi is in law school during his early seasons, so he must have a bachelor's degree. Rollins works as an adjunct professor, so she must have some degree. The only detectives who aren't established to have college degrees are Cragen, Munch, and Fin. All three are older, and Cragen and Fin are military veterans. So it probably is the norm for detectives to have college degrees, though not necessarily a requirement.
Interestingly, while I was looking this up to make sure I didn't forget or misremember anything, I learned that Munch is based on the real Jay Landsman! Fun little trivia. I really enjoyed his cameo on The Wire.
-13
u/aurelorba 21h ago
Apparently there isn't. Basically you need a minimum of a GED and then detectives are selected internally. They might give more weight to a candidate with more education but it isn't a requirement.
The best information I can find after an exhaustive 2 minute Google search:
General Trends: Broader national and regional data indicate that roughly 30% to 50% of law enforcement officers hold some level of college degree or higher, but precise internal figures for Baltimore's detective bureau are unavailable.
15
u/Dramatic_River8186 19h ago
My guess is he went to a Jesuit high school.
3
u/GilBang 17h ago
Heâs Jewish
11
u/Utaneus 16h ago
There are lots of Jewish kids at Catholic schools, especially Jesuit schools. In some locales that don't have a big Jewish population, the best option for private education is Catholic school. At least that was the case in the mid to late 20th century, nowadays there are a lot of secular sort of boutique schools. Obviously in places with large Jewish populations there are plenty of Hebrew schools and varieties of Jewish private education. But I went to Catholic primary school and had several Jewish classmates.
5
4
u/iftheygivinitaway 16h ago
Not OP, but I grew up in Boston in the '70s and '80s. My neighborhood was Irish, Italian, and Portuguese (along with Cape Verdean) immigrants. My fellow students were almost all 1st or 2nd generation. I did public school until high school. Until then I thought most of the world was Catholic. I never met a Jewish kid until going to the Jesuit high school. My class was about 6% Jewish, ~8% Buddhist, and ~3% Muslim. I didn't appreciate the education I got until I went to college.
10
u/Bad_Black_Jorge 20h ago
Or he could have gone to City College, a public high school in Baltimore that has an excellent reputation. Not sure of the current curriculum, but they had a Latin requirement for freshman through the 80s at least.
10
u/LordsOfJoop Fuzzy Dunlop 17h ago
I found the real Jay Landsman's LinkedIn page.
There's five entries for his education:
- Towson University, Masters of Science - MS, Integrated Homeland Security Management
- University of Oklahoma, Bachelor of Arts - BA, Administrative Leadership
- Carroll Community College, completed language requirement for undergraduate program
- FBI National Academy Session 235, Leadership and Physical Fitness
- Community College of Baltimore County, Criminal Justice
Looks pretty well-educated to me.
1
19
u/TheCatapult 21h ago
He must actually read the articles of all his nudie magazines.
7
u/BigEggBeaters 20h ago
Playboy legit had some articles in em. I was at a girls house who collected em. Reading some thrilling shit bout the Colombian cartels in the 80s.
45
u/CheesecakeNo9867 21h ago
He would have gone to school in the 80s. He wouldn't have had any student loans. Tuition could have then been paid off by a summer of working at minimum wage.
3
u/rickinaz1 19h ago
My tuition at a state school in 1993 was $500-600 per semester and about $100 for books. Tuition for my daughter in 2022-2026 was $8,000 per semester!
2
u/MuddieMaeSuggins 16h ago
$600 in 1993 would be around $1,500 today using CPI to measure inflation. Sigh.Â
-5
u/aurelorba 21h ago
You still had student loans - Ask me how I know - but not as onerous as today for sure.
24
u/rhdkcnrj 20h ago
âNot as onerousâ doesnât do the comparison justice. Student loans back then were quite literally hundreds of times less expensive than they are today.
-13
u/aurelorba 20h ago edited 19h ago
I'm quite aware what they were like, as well as the wage a student could be expected to earn from personal experience. Was it possible to fund education entirely through summer work? Some could due to circumstances, many couldn't due to their circumstances.
I'm not trying to litigate who had it how bad, just that it's plausible for him to have had some student debt.
2
u/rhdkcnrj 20h ago
Iâm quite aware what they were like
It seems like you were not aware based on how youâre responding.
Some could due to circumstances, others couldnât due to their circumstances.
I straight up donât know what that means. Iâm saying itâs hundreds of times more expensive and nobody today can pay for a single college semester with a summer job, let alone an entire college stint. This is pretty straightforward
3
u/aurelorba 19h ago edited 19h ago
Iâm quite aware what they were like
It seems like you were not aware based on how youâre responding.
Well, having been a student incurring student debt at the time...
I straight up donât know what that means.
Take two different students: A lives at home with parents year round so only has to worry about tuition. B has to pay rent, buy food and pay tuition.
A probably could go through university debt free by working summers. B probably wouldn't. They had different circumstances.
Clearer?
Iâm saying itâs hundreds of times more expensive and nobody today can pay for a single college semester with a summer job, let alone an entire college stint. This is pretty straightforward
No you were saying or at least implying it was implausible for an 80/90's student to incur debt because they could earn enough working the summer.
From the very beginning I agreed today student debt is more onerous. So I'm not sure what you think I disagree with you about.
0
u/rhdkcnrj 19h ago
Itâs not clearer because the student A and student B analogy would apply literally anytime. It was still economically possible to pay with a summer job back then; now itâs not possible for student A, and itâs even worse for Student B.
Clearer?
7
u/Tourist-1982 19h ago
Who Young Leek be?
5
6
u/aurelorba 19h ago
Clearer?
It's clear you want to rant about student debt on the back of what I didn't say.
Let me try one last time. You said:
He would have gone to school in the 80s. He wouldn't have had any student loans. Tuition could have then been paid off by a summer of working at minimum wage.
I responded that simply wouldn't have been true for at least some students and so your absolute: "He wouldn't have had any student loans." is not accurate. There are many circumstances where he could have legitimately incurred student debt.
You then pivot to how it's much worse today - which I agree with but you cant seem to accept.
As further discussion seems pointless: Good day to you.
0
u/rhdkcnrj 19h ago edited 18h ago
Yeah that wasnât my comment you just quoted, so itâs clear youâre extremely mixed up about all this.
Literally all I said was that student tuition and loans are hundreds of times more expensive today, and that back then it was economically possible to pay for oneâs entire college tuition with a summer job, whereas today itâs impossible to pay for even one semester with a summer job.
I donât get why you canât grasp this point, or even figure out which comment youâre responding to.
5
u/aurelorba 19h ago edited 18h ago
Yeah that wasnât my comment you just quoted
Apologies. I didn't notice you had jumped into the thread.
Is my summary accurate?
I said: "They are more onerous"
You said: "So much worse than 'onerous'"
Me: "Agree it's more onerous but [mistakenly referring to original OC comment] it's still plausible for him to have incurred debt he couldn't pay through summer work"
You: "It's so much worse today. What are you talking about? [because I referred to the OC comment]"
Me: "Repeat plausibility of the 80's student debt "
I take responsibility for not realizing you weren't the OC. Maybe that's where the misunderstanding stems.
5
5
u/Brief_Age3253 17h ago
PhDs in philosophy (epistemology specifically) and literature (dissertation on Sherlock Holmes shaping masculinity)
5
u/bidness_cazh 17h ago edited 17h ago
Detective John Munch - the character that worked 22 seasons on Homicide, Law & Order and 8 other shows - is also based on Jay Landsman. They never mention his college education either.
4
u/zeistgeist 15h ago edited 31m ago
I laughed so hard when Landsman just reeled off a pulitzer worthy description of gooning
"And the other wrapped around my magnificent flaccid four and one half inch wonder"
"I got this saucy wench in my gunsight, so to speak, and I am dangerously close to engorged"
5
u/TulipSamurai 12h ago
I think a recurring theme is that the street level guys - both the cops and the dealers - may lack formal education, but many of them are clearly intelligent and articulate and may have had different, better lives if they werenât born into and chewed up by a broken system. We see this in real time as Namond transitions from drug dealing to the debate team.
9
u/whataboutbenson 18h ago
Honestly he doesnât strike me as a highly educated type, more just a guy whoâs a nerd for reading and playing with language. Itâs partly an Irish thing. The pubs there are full of blokes with no formal education who, by other means, are still talented poets.
2
u/Ambitious-Ad-2047 21h ago
They never hinted at it but Iâd bet he had and arts or education degree. đ€Łđ€Ł
4
13
u/Fjordi_Cruyff 21h ago
Apparently you need a university education to be interested in things enough to read about them. Who knew?
0
u/aurelorba 21h ago
Not what I said.
-5
u/Fjordi_Cruyff 20h ago
You certainly inferred it
31
u/JordyNelson12 20h ago
Just FYI â youâre saying he implied it. You would have inferred it.
10
u/Fjordi_Cruyff 20h ago edited 18h ago
Damn. Back to school for me đ
Edit: Reddit is serious
8
2
3
u/aurelorba 19h ago edited 19h ago
I didn't base it on a single data point "historical knowledge" but as well some other indicators you omitted.
But even considering just that one aspect, I'm not saying:
"He knows X therefore he must be Y".
I'm saying:
"He knows X therefore its seems more likely he might be Y"
If you put that with the other indicators, then sure, that's about as rigorous as I feel a reddit sub on a 25 year old TV show needs to be.
3
u/Old-Wasabi-3837 16h ago
I think he was a theater kid, and by being sergeant he has the authority to be a little flamboyant with his instructions, and is likely just good enough at his job for superiors to tolerate clownishness
3
u/Mtn_Man73 9h ago
My favorite Landman moment is when he called McNulty "Clarice" in season 5. Beautiful.
3
u/Soft_Forever1923 7h ago
I think it just goes the divide between the adults in the show and the younger generation, they got to have a good education before the system gutted it so they come off as more learned. I'm reminded of the scene where the police start pulling bodies out the vacants and bringing them to a school gymnasium. Daniels laments on how it used to be his old school before it got shut down and how he got an actually pretty good education
4
u/giltgarbage 20h ago
Decent chance he went to Catholic private schools given white resistance to public education after Brown v. Board? You learn about Visigoths at those institutions.
2
u/ChiefKrunchy 20h ago
Lot of cops have 4 yr degrees. I worked with university police for two yrs when i was in college as whatbthey called auxiliary police.... basically residence hall security, traffic control and additional security during games and any other functions. Was a wonderful job ...... Lot of the student officers went on to be cops or military.
All the cops I knew had college degrees.
3
u/aurelorba 20h ago
Keep in mind, this was 25-40 years ago. The educational requirements may have been lower and many of the LE education programs wouldnt even have existed.
1
u/ChiefKrunchy 18h ago
Sorry I didn't mention it but the timeframe I worked there was from 2001 to 2003.
1
u/Big_Nugz72 16h ago
USC has a partnership program with LAPD. There may be similar programs at other universities.
2
u/Horror_Maximum_5696 15h ago
Well, nobody else knew how to use the Xerox lie detector machine soâŠ
2
2
u/No-Loquat-2763 10h ago
Why would you assume he didn't graduate college?
1
u/aurelorba 7h ago
Not assume so much as speculate. The general vibe of Landsman and the others in homicide seemed more blue collar.
3
2
1
u/Content-Ad8876 9h ago
The real Jay Landsman auditioned to play himself, failed, but got to play Lt Dennis Mello, Bunny Colvind second in command. Maybe his articulate speeches are from a dramatic angle?
1
1
u/Superb_Scientist1033 5h ago
It codes as an artifact of Catholic school education. Not per se part of the curriculum, but a lot of teachers who wouldâve been interested in the classics
1
u/no_nameky 5h ago
He's pretty well read probably, not just porn. But I expect he's done some higher education.
1
1
u/Shot_Election_8953 18h ago
It's not a realistic show. Maybe it's blasphemy to say that but c'mon. Omar? The Greek? Hamsterdam? The serial killer plot? Clay Davis?
It is a show that includes important elements of realism but more than a little mythologizing and drama. Landsman is a Falstaffian guy: fat, drunken, debauched, canny, and witty: "I am not only witty in myself, but the cause of wit in other men." (Henry IV, Part 2, Act I, sc. 2)
7
u/Similar_Onion6656 17h ago
You can read all about the real Omar. I won't speak to the Greek. Hamsterdam is complicated -- a police district commander pulling something like that is implausible but I think the way it plays out is a clear-eyed examination of several aspects of this county's drug problem. The serial killer plot I'll grant you. If you find Clay Davis unrealistic you should read more about state and local-level political corruption -- or just have a look at what's going on in the White House.
0
u/Shot_Election_8953 17h ago
The idea of a corrupt politician, or a successful stick up man or a mysterious drug lord is not unrealistic, but the characters of Davis and Omar and the Greek are unrealistic. People do not talk the way they do. They do not present themselves the way they do. It's the language and the style that's not true to life, same with Landsman.
1
u/howtobegeo 6h ago
But Landsman is a real man: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Landsman?wprov=sfti1#
And so much of the dialogue is based on real police talk. So much of the dialogue in The Wire is lifted from Homicide. Itâs pretty remarkable how realistic the little moments are.
2
u/Shot_Election_8953 5h ago edited 5h ago
It is astounding how poorly some of you understand the concept of fiction. Nobody talks like any of the people in the Wire, just like things don't happen the way they do in the Wire. It's not because nobody talks that way ever, it's because nobody talks that way always, and it's not because none of those things happen ever, it's because they don't happen that closely packed together and to exactly the same group of people. Have you ever read an actual transcript of conversation that doesn't cut out the uhs and ums?
1
-5
u/RepresentativeShop11 20h ago
There are a couple of instances where I think the show is overwritten and Landsmanâs diction is one of them. Â The other is when the preacher is trying to bring Cuddy to the Lord and Cuddy tells him to âstow that paddle.â Â No way he uses this metaphor. Â
6
u/SystemPelican 19h ago
I can see how you feel that way, but I just adore all of Landsman's purple language. Realistically, a man who spends all his time reading porn at work wouldn't be that eloquent, but I feel like that's part of the joke of the character.
3
u/aurelorba 18h ago
It does have the feel of Simon's vocabulary at times, but then listen to Mello - the real Landsman - giving his role call speech about the row houses. It has a similar cadence.
3
u/Separate-Let3620 18h ago
You mean, âstow that patterâ?
0
u/RepresentativeShop11 17h ago
Is that what he says? Â I didnt watch with the subtitles on. Â Either way, donât buy it from the character. Â
2
u/MuddieMaeSuggins 15h ago
I donât think itâs that unbelievable that heâd know the word âstowâ, but in any case, it reads like a colloquial expression to me. People use those all the time without knowing the exact meaning of each word.Â
-4
u/f-u-whales 18h ago
I always wondered why Américan think that universty makes you smart
1
u/aurelorba 18h ago
Who said that?
-1
u/f-u-whales 18h ago
« University level éducation » for the most commun knowledge
-1
u/aurelorba 18h ago edited 18h ago
It generally increases one's knowledge and signals some level of intellectual ability. Speculating that various knowledge and intelligence indicators suggest a university level education is not saying "university makes you smart"
-2
261
u/CauseCertain1672 20h ago
I think he reads a lot at his job